SRIDHARLAL Vs. NIRDOSH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Civil Revision Petition is filed against the order passed by the XV Assistant City Civil Judge, Chennai in I.A. No.3636 of 2002 in O.S. No.7913 of 1997 dated 3.4.2002.

(2.) FOR convenience, the parties are arrayed as found in the Suit proceedings. Facts of the case are as follows: Respondent herein had instituted a Suit on O.S. No.7913 of 1997 before the City Civil Court, Chennai for effecting division of the suit property in six equal shares and allotment of one such share in his favour and also for a direction to the first defendant, the petitioner herein to pay mesne profit at the rate of Rs.500/- per month from the date of Plaint till the date of separate possession of his shares. The main contention of the plaintiff, who is the respondent in the present Civil Revision is that the suit schedule property is an ancestral property inherited, by his maternal uncle in the year, 1940. Thereafter, the possession and enjoyment of the property went to the hands of Tmt. Parvathi Bai, widow of the plaintiff's uncle. Even during her life time, Tmt. Parvathi Bai executed a registered Will dated 9.11.1969, bequeathing the property in favour of the plaintiffs mother Tmt. Lakshmi Devi. The plaintiff's father was appointed as an executor of the Will. Till her death, the plaintiffs mother had been enjoying the suit property. After her death, the plaintiff and the defendants were put in joint possession of the property in question. Plaintiff's father pre-deceased his wife, viz. the mother of the plaintiff, who had left the plaintiff and the defendants as here legal heirs. To his shock and surprise, the plaintiff came to know of the fact that the 1st defendant, after obtaining a false legal heirship certificate in his favour, had changed the name in the electricity consumption card and in the patta register in respect of the suit property, as if the property exclusively belonged to him. While the plaintiff and the defendants were in joint possession of the property, the first defendant and the third defendant alone were enjoying the major portions of the joint family property and deriving the benefits towards rental income.

(3.) REBUTTING the averments made in the above Application, the Plaintiff/respondent in his counter affidavit has explained the ownership of the property and the admissibility of the certified copy of a Will for marking the same as one of the exhibits to substantiate his claim.